Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for October 16, 2015

Hemingway, Steinbeck, and “Catcher in the Rye” are neither boring or confusing and they are great literature.

The problem with labeling something as “classic”, is that there isn’t a standard to go by. Some of my favorite books are “classics” while some of the worst ones I’ve ever read were also labeled “classic”. Just go by the genre and recommendations when picking which book to read. You’ll be a lot more satisfied.

Proof that Rat is wrong: Every Sherlock Holmes story ever written.

Pig speaks the truth, what is wrong with those people?

Reading “great literature” in school may prejudice people’s minds against it. It’s best if you pick it up on your own.

On the other hand, I probably wouldn’t have picked up War and Peace if it hadn’t been for a historiography class, and it was one of the best novels I’d ever read.

I see Rat’s hoping Killing Patton will become great literature.

With a few exceptions (only one of them being the teachers (and then there was an exception) and two of them being books) none of my teachers could really get me to read what they wanted me to read without practically having to brow beat me. It’d not that I didn’t like to read. I could go home and pick up Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Alexander Dumas, Thomas Malory, etc. as well as more recent authors and read. But I hated being forced to read, even if I got to pick the book for a book report I was being forced to read. My 10th grade English teacher was the real exception because most of the books he assigned he made fun to read (he’d been an actor at one point and tended to act things out). There was only one book he couldn’t get me to read, but then he couldn’t get even three quarters of us to read it. And that was the first book in Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. Supposed to be great science fiction, found Asimov a great bore. This thought was only reinforced in chemistry class as there was an Asimov short story in the text book that was putting me to sleep.

Had to read “Catch 22” for college. Fits this description perfectly.

“The Shipping News” (1993) by E. Annie Proulx won the Pulitzer Prize and the US National Book Award. It was the WORST book I have ever read!!!! Hoping it would get better I forced myself to finish it. I’m sorry I did that. I could not identify with any of the characters. The writing was slow, tedious, and boring. A complete waste of time. The only good that came of it was when I put it in recycling.

I happen to think Hemingway is boring – maybe because I’m female. Most admirers tend to be male.

I like most Dickens – depends on what the story is about.

Rat hit the nail on the head here.

Well the big ticket item here is that we all “READ”…does not mean that we like what we read but we all read…..sort of cool in a way !

On the Origin of Species by C. Darwin.I found that this book replaces several other books on my bookshelf so it’s a good read and a space saver.

Pig has the real point in today’s episode of PBS. English teachers—some, not all—can be very obtuse, especially those just out of (or still in) graduate school (others, usually more experienced, are great). Without going into detail, I had a great dispute with such a newbie over The Catcher in the Rye in freshman college English that left me exasperated and with no confidence in her for the rest of that semester (we thankfully had another, veteran, professor second semester).

To make a point, I’m choosing as an example a body of work that is beginning to be accepted as great/classical. It is often said that classic status is granted to books that have stood the test of time. If people over many years continue to want to read them and discuss them, analyze them, be guided by them… they become generally acknowledged as classical. When I was in high school, I attempted to read H.P. Lovecraft and didn’t find it engaging or satisfying. Over time friends continued to recommend him. Tested the waters again in college, again in grad school. No joy. But something was percolating in the random mix of Lovecraft I had consumed. And one day I found myself thinking about the overarching cosmic view that united those stories. Long story short, I got back into the pool and have been swimming joyfully ever since. In recent years, leading critics, authors, professors of literature have begun to pay homage to Lovecraft. (The wonderful Joyce Carol Oates has played a major role in bringing him the attention he deserves.) My own journey from disinterest to an abiding and awestruck admiration paralleled the wider history of his acceptance. Once published in the literary equivalent of a dead end alley… the cheap pulp magazines… he is now being welcomed into academia. My point is that there was a time that I was not ready for him. I had to grow and broaden and (for whatever reason) keep putting a toe in the water every few years until I was ready. I suspect that very soon he will be one of those “required” authors in high school Lit classes, loudly bemoaned as boring by legions of students. And, P.S., I love and appreciate and am thrilled by every single author and almost every book mentioned in the above posts as “boring” or “the worst”! Generations of readers love a writer or a book and you don’t? Is there a slim possibility that something is lacking not with the work but with the reader?

The Forsythe Saga. OMG! it was 5 or 7 books and all as boring as could be. The Bible has more sex and violence in it.

Just because a book is dubbed a “classic” doesn’t make it so. If I read a book and it speaks to me in a profound way, to me it is a classic.

As my dad would say: " If everyone wanted to be a beer truck driver, who would make the beer?…or the truck?".Perhaps that is why there are so many different authors: to fill the tastes of so many readers.But I could be wrong, it has happened.

Great literature requires “thinking” – ergo, it bores and confuses your average idiot.

One sort of wonders what makes a “classic”. Did the author think it would turn out like that; or did he/she just write it to put a meal on the table? Two pretty new books that I really liked were Elizabeth George’s “A Great Deliverance” and Owen Parry’s “Faded Coat of Blue”. It strikes me that sometimes the language gets in the way of some “classics”.

I’m decades past high school, and an avid reader of a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction, and I still occasionally wonder why some books were picked as mandatory reads by my school’s English curriculum folks.

Silas Marner

I think Mark Twain said something to the effect of:

A “Classic” is something everyone wants to have read, but no one wants to read.

My problem with “classic” literature has always been that it seems that it can’t be understood or appreciated unless some erudite individual explains what the author meant. I once had a English Lit class that used an annotated book of Shakespeare that had the pages split in half vertically. The left side was Shakespeare, and the right side was a translation telling you what he meant. Well, the author telling you what he thought Shakespeare meant. In spite of this, my lowbrow tastes do like Shakespeare, but my first loves are mysteries, thrillers, and military fiction and non-fiction. Rex Stout, Lee Child, W.E.B. Griffin, Dick Francis, Barbara Tuchman, Arthur Conan Doyle and Ross Thomas are where I spend my money.And the greatest book [actually, an eleven book series] that melds all my likes into one place, The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant.

I had to read that in Junior High where we called it Great Expectorations. It was awful but it may have been because the teacher who gave us no context or help in understanding what it was about. I’ll probably never know because I have no plans to read it again.

Evan as short as it is, Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea damn near put me in a coma.

I will partly disagree with Rat. As a kid I remember loving some school assignments, A Tale Of Two Cities, The Old Man And The Sea and Animal Farm. Plus on my own I read The Lord Of The Rings, A Christmas Carol, Alice In Wonderland and The Chronicles Of Narnia. But in fairness to Rat we were also assigned some things that even as someone with a Masters degree in English I find pretty odd to assign to a teenager – Beowulf, The Red Pony (made me hate Steinbeck for so long but thankfully I read other better works that turned that around) and Lazarillo de Tormes, which is just a weird selection period. Plus the teachers all managed to find a way to teach even the most interesting novel in the driest most pedantic way imaginable.

“I’d like to like this book, but there’s a catch: it’s been assigned to me to read.” “So you’d like it if it weren’t assigned to you?”“Yes, but I wouldn’t read it if it weren’t assigned to me.”“That’s some catch.”“One of the best there is!”

In high school in the 1970’s I was assigned (and read) a bunch of so-called classic books. Some were readable, some weren’t.

40 years later, my son was assigned 75% of the same books (and most of the rest were books others of my generation had been assigned but I hadn’t gotten.) I think he was assigned only 2 books written in the last 50 years.

I think the current generation of English teachers is just dumping the same stuff on their students that they got back in the day.

Like so many other areas, “greatness” in literature (or music or art or…) is entirely subjective.

I just sent this to my son’s high school English teacher. :D

That is so true!!! Many books would have faded away if it weren’t for English teachers buying them in bulk. Examples: anything by Hemingway or Steinbeck.

The teacher of the required “Literary Appreciation” class in High School made us read ‘The Scarlet Letter’ By Hawthrone. We then spent the ENTIRE semester acting out parts of the book, writing reports, essays, and having classroom discussions about it. By the time the semester was over, I was ready to BURN the book and force my teacher to eat the ashes.

Critics always seem to greatly outnumber creative and talented artists.

Gees people, lighten up. I have 15 UW English credits under my belt, but became an EE and had to deal with English Majors changing my software documentation and ignoring the technical (at Bell Telephone Laboratories). Later I found out it’s just like getting an eastern European non-Christian to agree with anything. P.S. I’ve read more lit than you!

My junior high school class all voluntarily read, discussed and enjoyed “Catcher in the Rye.” … we thought it had been banned!

YES!!!!! I had to read it in 9th grade, what a horrible waste of time….

i do love a heated literary discussion. i’m fairly well read across several categories(former bookstore owner).i still think gatsby is way overrated.&catcher in the rye which i really wanted to like(my dad was reading salinger when he met mom).some things just should only be taught at a college level. some things are meant to be read allowed. i was told i’d like homer better if he was read aloud although i still haven’t tried. and unfortunately some teachers are gifted at engendering hatred of literature. oh well. and why are so many classics depressing. can’t something be cheerful and literature? if i had my way, i’d make kids read hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy& some terry pratchett, and shirley jackson’s funny stuff instead of the lottery. and more mark twain besides the obvious ones….

“For Whom the Bell Tolls,”“Anna Karenina”“Catcher in the Rye”Anything by John Updike (though, I would not allow anyone under 16 to read him)

I read “Of Mice and Men” at school and saw both the 1939 and 1992 movies.

Love it.

xxx

“Letters to Penthouse Volume XIII” is Mankind’s greatest achievement. Not at all boring.

I think Pastis is just deliberately setting us up to watch us fight.

1. A classic work is one which bears re-reading, because you can continue to find new meanings and messages each time you read it anew.

2. Some works need you to be in the right frame of mind or with the right experience. I’ve started some works and decided, “Not now.” Some years later, I stumbled over them again, and it was the right time.

WATCH OUT, PIGGY! But seriously, a really good teacher can make just about every reading assignment interesting and engaging. As a retired English teacher with a Master’s degree, I’ve had the experience of observing a number of colleagues. Some were terrific, some were mediocre, and some should not have been in the teaching profession. From what I’ve read of the above comments, a number of you had the latest kind. I am sorry for that, because having an appreciation for good literature can be one of your greatest abilities and a comforting and pleasant way to spend quiet time. On the other hand, and for the record, I’ve never read “Moby Dick” or “Atlas Shrugged.” Not all books are appealing to everyone……

And it has to have a title that has little to do with the actual story. (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Grapes of Wrath, etc.)

Great literature is wasted on the young. I picked up more from Classic Comics than from English class.

Oh, and any spy novel by John le Carré.

And yet, here we all are in the funny pages.I don’t remember how I learned to read, but I have to credit the Walt Disney comics of the 50’s and 60’s for making me love reading, especially Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, and Gyro Gearloose. Thank you, Carl Barks, for all the great adventures.

Hemingway: Utterly pointless stories written well and as shortly as possible.

Dickens: Being paid by the word is not a literary crime, but padding your writing to increase the word and page counts is. Unlike Hemingway, there was a worthwhile point to Dickens’s works, but what you had to go through to get to it!

Catcher in the Rye: I never read more than short snatches of it, and I was very, very glad to draw the English teacher that assigned The Scarlet Letter instead.

Hawthorne and many other 19th century writers: See Dickens.

Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters: Wrote like Dickens, without including anything of interest to men or boys. OTOH, Austen did bury snippets of sharp social commentary in her work; it’s just difficult to stay awake long enough to find them, and I’d be unaware of it except for the Jane Austen/Seth Grahame-Smith mashup “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”.

And, because my uncle majored in Russian literature and would send books as my Christmas presents:

Tolstoy: Too wordy, but somehow kept the story moving even in a gigantic book like War and Peace.

Dostoevsky: Just depressing.

Solzhenitsyn: Depressing, but you should read some of his work about the Gulags. OTOH, his WWI novel August 1914 is another huge Russian novel, like a five-week section of War and Peace plus a detailed history book.

Nikolai Gogol: A great, rather dry, humorist, but it takes effort to read him. It’s difficult to picture what is going on in his stories, not because the writing is difficult, but because the Russian village culture behind most of his stories is so different. E.g., his short story “Dead Souls” is about buying and selling the identities of dead serfs in order to pad out the buyer’s claim to nobility based on the population of his lands. Tolstoy is far more accessible because (although Tolstoy loved the “noble peasant”) he wrote mainly about the French-influenced upper classes.

I recently bought a DVD of “The Last Unicorn”. In the commentary, the author Peter S. Beagle says that after a few years he realized “Oh my gosh, it’s become a classic!”

Then again, we have Lord of the Rings, which is one of the best books I have ever read.

When people are willing to read it no matter how long ago it was written!

My freshman English teacher assigned us a lot of Gothic horror. I enjoyed “The Monkey’s Paw”, but we also had to read “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and that is one bleak story. It’s kind of a mixed bag.